This invention relates to a method and a pocket buffering device which are useful in highlighting certain documents being fed into a pocket from the rest of the documents which are already stacked in the pocket.
One of the early operations in the processing of financial documents at financial institutions, like banks, is referred to as "over-the counter" work. In a typical operation, an operator uses a machine which is referred to as an encoder to match or prove the monetary amount on a deposit slip with the total monetary amount of the checks associated with that transaction and to encode or print the monetary amount in MICR ink on the associated checks. For example, a deposit slip lists three checks whose total value is equal to $25.00, and the three checks associated with this transaction have monetary amounts of $10.00, $10.00, and $5.00. To process this transaction, the operator first enters the total amount of $25.00 from the deposit slip on a keyboard associated with the encoder. This amount is then encoded in MICR ink on the deposit slip, and the slip is then moved along a document track to a pocket associated with the encoder. Thereafter, the operator reads the monetary amount on the first check, $10.00 in the example being described, and enters this amount on the keyboard. This amount is then encoded in MICR ink in the amount field under the signature line on the associated check, and the check is then moved along a document track to the pocket. If this is not the first transaction, there will be other documents formed into a stack in the pocket as received from prior transactions. This process is repeated for the remaining checks in the transaction being described. Each time a check is entered, the monetary amount of that check is subtracted from the total monetary amount entered for the deposit slip so that when the last check is entered, the balance in the machine should be $0.00. This balance of $0.00 indicates that the operator has entered this transaction correctly and that the deposit slip listing of the items is correct; consequently, the operator may proceed to the next transaction.
The process just described for a single transaction is repeated for the remaining transactions, including deposit slips and their associated checks as in the example being described. For some transactions, a single deposit slip may have only one check or 100 or more checks associated with it. A recent study indicated that, on average, there are eight checks per deposit slip.
Suppose that an operator makes a mistake in entering the monetary amount of a check in the process being described or that the deposit slip does not contain an accurate listing of the associated checks; the mistake would be indicated by not obtaining a $0.00 balance at the end of the transaction. An important point to be made here is that the monetary amounts which are encoded on the deposit slips and the checks in MICR ink are used in high speed processing by the receiving bank and by the rest of the banking industry, so it is very important that these monetary amounts are correct. When an error occurs in a transaction, the operator looks at the printer tape, for example, associated with the machine to find out how many checks were associated with this transaction. Suppose that ten checks were associated with the deposit slip for this last transaction. To find the error, the operator has to reach over to the stack of documents in the pocket of the machine and physically lift out the entire stack of documents or at least enough of the stack to include the ten checks and the deposit slip associated with the transaction out of balance. With these documents in front of him or her, the operator then must find and separate the unbalanced documents from the others before attempting to find the error and return the remainder to the pocket, The operator then reviews the individual documents to find the error. The error may have been due to the opeator entering the wrong amount on the check, for example. This means that the amount of the check which has been encoded in MICR ink has to be changed. This is accomplished in any conventional way, such as by covering the incorrect encoded amount with a correction sticker, entering the correct amount on the keyboard of the machine, and thereafter, passing the check past the encoder to print the correct amount on the affected check. When the operator is satisfied that the transaction is now correct, the operator returns the corrected documents to the pocket in the correct order. Isolating the last deposit slip and separating the proven and unproven documents before error correction can begin is a time consuming job.